Following on from the success of the Dragon Tails conferences at Ballarat (2009), Melbourne (2011), Wollongong (2013) and Cairns (2015) we will be holding, in central Victoria, the fifth Dragon Tails, an Australasian conference on Chinese diaspora history and heritage.

This year’s conference theme highlights not only the role of imagination in shaping actions of Chinese-Australasians, but also the realities and challenges that Chinese-Australasians have encountered in pursuing their hopes and dreams.

Professor Madeline Y. Hsu from the University of Texas (Austin), will be keynote speaker. Professor Hsu served as Director of the Center for Asian American Studies 2006-2014 and is currently a Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin. She received her undergraduate degrees in History from Pomona College and PhD from Yale University, and is currently president-elect of the Immigration and Ethnic History Society and vice-president of the International Society for the Study of Chinese Overseas.

Professor Hsu’s extensive list of publications include The Good Immigrants: How the Yellow Peril Became the Model Minority (Princeton University Press, 2015) and Dreaming of Gold, Dreaming of Home: Transnationalism and Migration Between the United States and South China, 1882-1943 (Stanford University Press, 2000), which received the 2002 Association for Asian American Studies History Book Award.

The Dragon Tails conferences promote research into the histories and heritage of Chinese people, their descendants and their associates, in Australasia (Australia and New Zealand). The conferences also encourage awareness of the connections of Chinese in Australasia with the histories of Chinese people, their descendants and their associates in other countries.

Dragon Tails conferences encourage an approach to history which combines the skills and interests of academic, community, local, family, professional, independent and amateur historians, archaeologists and heritage workers, as well as other professionals, academics and writers with an express interest in this field of research.